Are you feeling ready for that Hot Vax summer… or a better-branded version of the same? Me too! So many ways to celebrate…Cocktails via the Botrista Drinkbot! Robot manicures in San Francisco! Team off-sites in Panama! Chest palpitations from Elon Musk’s Dogecoin tweets… Crypto’s up! It’s down! It’s a Shiba Inu called Floki?! Also, how cute was Elon as a newborn?

FYI, try and avoid Mark Zuckerberg’s spears should you venture into the wild (not joking).

In light of all the living it up, we’re going to do this summer, the June release of Two Truths and a Lie, the Silicon Valley Startup Edition is taking a stroll down sleep-makeover startups because you’re going to need to get those zzz's if you wanna keep up. You know the drill by now:

Out of the following three sleep startups, which is fake?

(Scroll to the bottom for the answers.)

Know of some ridiculous stuff happening in tech? Email, DM, or tweet me to include it in next month’s edition.

W orking in an Amazon warehouse is no joke — it’s grueling enough that we have Nomadland, an Oscar-winning movie about the practice, and numerous Amazon-run Twitter shill accounts by ”happy” workers attempting to counter that narrative with tweets about how fulfilled they are at the fulfillment center. Actually, that does sound like a joke, but whatever. Anyhoo, instead of providing longer rest breaks, better pay, or you know, less invasive monitoring of their employees’ time by the minute, they’ve opted to supply a bunch of “ZenBooths,” to the warehouse floors instead. Each vertical coffin-like structure is priced at $4K-plus.

Amazon has outfitted these so-called “interactive kiosk” with a computer loaded with meditation videos, positive affirmation videos (erm, what?), and “calming scenes with sounds.” They’ve equipped said box with plants and a fan, reports Motherboard. Three guesses on how long it takes for someone to f**k or piss in there? Hmm, k. Oh yeah, and the name of this program? AmaZen.

W e’d all like the workplace to be a place of unfettered joy, with people bursting into spontaneous song and dance numbers, with purring Pokemon underfoot. But IRL, especially with the specter of 2020 not far off, that’s A LOT to ask for. However, Canon, in their might and wisdom disagrees. For them, smiles are not just hoped for, but MANDATORY for employees in their Chinese offices, reports James Vincent at The Verge. That is if they want to pass the smile recognition tech that unlocks doors and meeting rooms.

Yeesh. Who doesn’t want to be surrounded by zombie-like grinning folk whose toothy exterior hides an inner well of pain? Thankfully, smile-recognition technology is only so good, meaning it will mostly just take your mouth shape into consideration, so those who can’t smize because they’re dead inside can still fake their way into their workplace.

W ith kids so glued to their laptops these days, its hard to know if they’ve been completing their Google Classroom assignments or watching Ducksauce’s Mesmerize on repeat instead (have fun fielding those Morgan Freeman butthole questions!), let alone filling out a physical worksheet. Enter the spy lamp, a.k.a. the smart homework lamp, a craze started by ByteDance Inc. First introduced late last year for $120, reports Liza Lin in The Wall Street Journal, today you can purchase multiple variations of the I-don’t-trust-my-kids cams. Each unit includes two cameras, one facing the child and one angled towards their screen or homework book, making sure your progeny is following instructions and is engaged. A touch screen interface with a digital assistant is attached and provides homework help when needed.

Premium versions include text message alerts and photos to parents should their child dare to slouch/sleep/claw at their eyes. Parents can also purchase remote tutoring services, where a real human will teach their kids via the lamp.“It’s much more efficient,” explained Ms. Ni Ying, who bought one for her 10-year-old daughter.

“I’ve felt less agitated about her homework and the lamp has improved our relationship.”

S rsly, there SO MANY startups chattering about the alt-breast-milk space. TurtleTree Labs in Singapore. Bio Milk in Israel… OK, I get it, breast milk is healthy, and not everyone can produce enough — or have the luxury to, considering how much it impedes on everyday life. And of course, $$$$.

I was going to link to studies that say the formula is every bit as good as from-the-boob, but then I’d need to link to studies that say the opposite, and, ehh. People have such strong feelings on this sh*t, and I’m like, let people do what they want. Don’t guilt them. Don’t pseudoscience this. Anyways, BIOMILQ, reports Forbes. Reading past the enthusiastic descriptions of the company as “the new titan,” after $3.5 million of funding, in under eleven months, the startup’s successfully cultured mammary cells in a lab to create “milk” with a similar macronutrient profile to breast milk.

“We have no intention to replace chestfeeding…instead, we intend to offer parents another supplemental feeding option to nourish healthier babies, empower parents through choice, and contribute to a healthier planet,” says Michelle Egger, Co-Founder, and CEO. Whichever side of the debate you fall, the fact that such a small company has managed to get this far in under a year — a pandemic year, no less — is a huge accomplishment.

T BH, nothing ‘bout the term MUD/WTR appeals to me: not the idea of mud as a beverage (eww) nor its unselfconsciously annoying way of spelling (and possibly pronouncing) the brand. But in the name of journalism and public flagellation, SFGate’s Drew Magary stepped up for the ultimate taste test of this unappealingly named coffee substitute.

He approached the task with herculean self will, sharing that lion’s mane — “not literal mane of lion, but a mushroom within the tooth fungus” family,” is one of the ingredients. Magary’s no holds barred accounting is the most entertaining read on coffee you’ll have today (no promises on any other days) and takes you deep into an alt-food space you didn’t know you were missing. “Maybe swapping out coffee for some earthy-crunchy diarrhea powder would be a wise move not only for me but for AMERICA.”

So, do you think it was worth it?

Answers to “Two Truths and a Lie”: The pet+owner bed startup is the fake one. Opus makes the $1,9999 sound-healing bed, and Vollebak makes the Deep Sleep Cocoon jacket, $895.

Celebrating the free-wheeling spirit of the Bay Area — one sentence at a time.

Tech+Culture f/lance journo. www.zarastone.net Bylines: OneZero, Marker, Atlantic, Forbes, etc. Pre-order: The Future of Science Is Female https://bit.ly/stm202